$2.66

It is now 6:30 pm on Tuesday, the 13th of July and I have just returned home (having missed the stop at San Luis on the way back from Terminal de Occidente and having to follow the bus on its route back). I started with $100. Now, I only have $2.66 to last me till tomorrow when I can get more cash from the bank.

I believe I left the house at 7:30 am on Saturday the 10th and since then, I have been to La Palma, San Ignacio and El Poy in El Salvador as well as Nueva Ocotopeque, La Entrada and Copan Ruinas in Honduras.

It was just this morning I was breathing in the clean fresh air of Cerro El Pital, the highest peak in El Salvador and shaking from the cold at that altitude. Now I'm back in this furnace that is San Salvador; breathing in the fumes of its clogged up roads.

Chase

Chase and I stayed up late into the night talking. He was a 25 year-old Mormon who had done two years of missionary work in Mexico. I was interested in Mormonism: its faith, the lifestyle and what it was like to do missionary work.

During his stint in Mexico, he became disillusioned with his faith: he began to think (thinking tends to do that), disagreed with Scripture, tried to reconcile it with his own beliefs on how religion should really be, and failed. The Guilt Factor (the Trump Card of religion) didn't help very much either.

But when you think about it, morality - this notion of Good and Evil - becomes subjective; changing on a case-by-case basis. So what I think is Right or Wrong may very well be different from what you think is Right or Wrong; deing dependent on upbringing and education as well as culture and beliefs.

So now, he's trying to start afresh. But how does one turn his back on something that his entire life has been built on? His family, his social circle, his upbringing, his values and lifestyle. Then again, now that I think about it, sure, it might be difficult; but hardly impossible - look where I'm at now.

Of the many things we spoke of, one other thing made me think and that was his take on death. Although his approach is similar to mine, he deconstructs the emotions surrounding death into two: what I call the 'loss' and 'miss' emotions. And whilst I don't feel the former, I certainly do the latter and this has put into words what I've been trying to do since I started thinking about it.